Folder Localizer

Folder Localization Tool

This
is a directory name localization tool for Mac OS X. While it is
intended primarily for developers, it can also be used by anyone who
wants to have their folders show up in the login language.

Localizing
a folder in Mac OS is possible, but requires several easy (yet tedious)
steps. This tool automates those steps, making is much quicker to
create localized folders.

Since it's not entirely an intuitive thing to understand, we'll do a quick demonstration here:

We'll
assume for the sake of argument that you have a folder name in English,
but you want the folder to show up in Japanese as well, if the user is
logged in in Japanese. (And still display in English, if the user is
logged in in English).

For our test, we'll simply make a directory called "Test Folder" (of course) via the normal end-user method in Finder.

Next, we'll launch our Localizer tool, and get the blank screen:

It's
actually waiting for us to select a folder to localize, so we click the
"..." button next to "Physical Path", and select the "Test Folder"
directory, and then the screen will update as follows.

The
"Physical Path" button updates to show the actual path on disk to the
directory we selected. Note that the "localized" checkbox below is not
checked. That means the folder is not marked as localized. If you
click the "Localize" button, the tool will rename the folder
appropriately, the directory name will change, and the Localized
checkbox will update.

The next option
"Localization Sub-Directory Path" is somewhat of an implementation
detail, so if you don't care about how the system works, you just need
to click "Create" to make the required sub-directory.

Now
comes the most important part, the grid at the bottom. This is where
you put in the languages you want to support, and the display name in
each language. The left-hand column holds the 2-letter language code,
while the right-hand side holds the actual text to be displayed.

While this seems a bit cryptic, it's actually quite easy. For example "en" is English, "ja" is Japanese, etc.

Once
you're done filling in the languages you want, click the "Write"
button, and the tool will take care of the necessary details and write
out all the required files. The change should show up immediately in
the Finder.

Some Notes:

1. As
evidences by the grid, you aren't limited to only two languages, in
fact, there is no practical limit - you can support as many languages as
you would like using Apple's localization scheme. (This version of the
tool only supports 5 entries, however). The codes are standard
two-letter ISO codes in most cases.

2. It doesn't matter which language you use for the "real" physical path, though English is typical.

3.
You have to put all of the languages you want to be supported in the
grid, including the original/physical name. Once Finder detects that a
path is localized, it will only display titles from the items in the
grid here. For example, if the folder name is "Test Folder", but we
only put the Japanese translation (i.e. no "en" entry), then it would
display the name in Japanese all the time!

The
interesting thing to note here, is that assuming you are logged in in
the same language as the folder's original (physical) language, and
assuming your translation matches, everything will look the same in
Finder - even though it's actually quite different under the hood.

Notice
how the main name at the top is as we expect it to be. then look at
the "Name & Extension" part below - it tells the truth. A quick
check with the "ls" command in a Unix terminal window also won't lie.

Next, we log in in Japanese and take a look:

Aha,
you can see our folder name shows up in Japanese now, as desired. In
fact, all of the folders here have been localized. This is a nice
feature, because developers can install folders which show up in the
user's desired language, without having to actually use different
folders for each language. (Microsoft still doesn't use this feature,
however, even as of office 2011).

Cautions:

1.
Be careful not to put spaces in the language code fields, this early
version of the software doesn't check for things like that.

2. It isn't [yet] possible to remove unwanted languages. You can do this manually by deleting the appropriate .strings file.

3.
Since localizing folders actually changed the directory name, don't
localize sensitive folders, such as /Develop, and don't localise the
"Movies", "Photos", etc. folders under your home folder, as Apple uses a
different localization scheme for these.

4. Many commercial
products (such as VMWare Fusion 3.1) create localized folders that can
not be edited by this tool. (This tool expects the localization
information to be stored in UTF8 format).

5. The "real"
(physical) name of localized folders shows up in some older/less
compatible programs, to command-line Unix utilities, and/or if you view
the disks from another operating system.

6. Apple considers
(rightly) that users get the final say in the name of any filesystem
objects. Thus, if they rename a folder, that will become it's physical
and display name, and any localization will be ignored from then on.

Fun and Profit:

You
could make folders nearly impossible to use on non Mac OS systems by
making the physical name something like #74$"G#$IH"2%H.localized, and
then setting the display name to something readable.

More Information:

Further information on Apple's localization scheme can be found at the links below:

Although
a Windows version is provided for convenience, don't expect the folders
to show up in Explorer using the localized names. You will only be
able to see the translated display names when you view the folder under
Mac OS X.